Achiuwa Earns Praise from Teammates, Fans

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The day before the St. John’s men’s basketball team’s 110-80 win over C.W. Post, freshman shooting guard D’Angelo Harrison
was asked who on the team stood out in the first two weeks of practice.

“God’sgift [Achiuwa] is a monster,” he said. “He’s going to have a very good season.”

Against Post, Achiuwa showed what Harrison was talking about. The junior forward led the Red Storm with 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting, including three transition buckets in the first 2:12 of the game. He shot 7-of-7 in the first half, and grabbed nine rebounds in the game.

“I didn’t expect it to come so easy,” Achiuwa said. “It’s something I’ve been working on. I’ve been working with
the coaches through the summer. They’ve been telling me to run and that’s what I did. In the first ten minutes of the game I realized how I could get to the basket.”

Most of his points came in transition. He showed off his baseline-to-baseline speed, impressing his teammates, who made it a point to get the ball to the big man.

“I call him a man-child,” said freshman guard Phil Greene. “He runs up and down the court like a guard. We know that
no big man in the country can stick with him full court, so he’s going to be open a lot in a lot of games.”

“He’s an extremely hard worker,” added sophomore guard Nurideen Lindsey. “I never saw anybody get from rim to rim, baseline to
baseline, at his size, as fast as him.”

Achiuwa quickly endeared himself to the student section as well. After hitting his third straight layup early in the game, fans started chanting, “God’s on our side.”

“That really got me going because I believe in God so much,” Achiuwa said. “That was really motivating for me.”